Sunday, August 29, 2010

"Kaplan GRE Exam Advanced Math" is Horrible

I have two complaints about this product. First, on the cover it claims to be "your only guide an 800," but it's not. Secondly, and much more importantly, it is horrible. To be specific, it is full of mistakes, especially in the answer keys. There's nothing more frustrating than spending all day trying to find out why an answer is wrong when it is in fact right. This book is a horribly low-quality product, and Kaplan should be ashamed to have its name on it. If a single Kaplan employee had attempted to go through the book before publication and try to work all the problems, they would have clearly seen how riddled with errors it was. But apparently nobody checked.

So if you have not bought this book, don't ever buy it. And if you have bought the book, I may be able to help you. I circled some of the erroneous problems in my book, so here is a list of problems to skip, although it may not be exhaustive.

Chapter 1: Arithmetic
Problems 9, 21, 22, 27

Chapter 2: Algebra
Problems 2, 15, 23

Chapter 5: Word Problems
Problems 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23

Those are all the problems that I have circled, but there may be more that have errors.


The Kaplan GRE Exam Advanced Verbal, on the other hand, is a fine book. It has a nice list of advanced-level words, and they are organized in multiple ways: by meaning, by word roots, by likelihood of being on the test, and so on. The same words get repeated over and over, but that's a useful way of learning vocabulary. If you're looking for a good advanced verbal book, consider this one. And consider complementing it with some more creative ways to learn vocab, such as podcasts.


Both of these books claim to be "your only guide to an 800," but they aren't. Check out my guide.

2 comments:

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